Felicity Smoak appeared in several scenes in “Fadeout,” tonight’s series finale for Arrow, but the final scene — which was also the final scene the cast and crew filmed together before wrapping on the series — was written long before star Emily Bett Rickards agreed to return for the final season. Rickards, who started as a day player in the first season and ultimately evolved into a series regular, the love interest for Oliver Queen (Stephen Amell), and ultimately the title character’s wife, left the series at the end of its seventh season, meaning that of the ten episodes that aired in the show’s eighth and final season, its female lead was not in nine of them.
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Fans had more or less assumed all along that there would be an “Olicity” scene in the last episode, but producers had been cautious when talking about their hopes to make it happen. We asked series co-creator Marc Guggenheim whether he knew for sure that he had Felicity when he wrote the end of the episode.
“No, we really didn’t,” Guggenheim told ComicBook.com. “Because we didn’t know if Emily would return to the show, so the challenge in [the season seven finale] was, how do you tee up a potential appearance in season eight, but not require, or not owe a appearance in season eight. But it all worked out very organically.”
The scene itself, apparently had come to Guggenheim during meditation — something that he stressed during a conversation with reporters about the finale was not actually common for him.
“This has never happened to me before or since,” Guggenheim said. “I came out of the meditation with the entire scene in my head, like literally word for word, exactly as you just watched it. I quickly opened up my laptop, and [thought], ‘I gotta get this down.’ For me, it felt so right. And I very excitedly texted Beth, ‘I wrote the final scene, I’ve got to send it to you.’ Of course the big question was, is Emily coming back to be in it? We were like, well, now she really has to, because I really love the scene. And fortunately she did.”
Besides a final scene with Oliver, fans got to see Felicity meet her grown daughter, Mia (Katherine McNamara) due to the wonders of time-travel. Other “next generation” members of the Green Arrow and the Canaries cast did not appear, narratively because William was kidnapped in last week’s backdoor pilot but also, logically, because the younger version of William was already at the funeral, whereas baby Mia was at home teething.
Arrow‘s final season is available for sale on streaming video on demand platforms. The finale, as well as four more recent episodes from season eight, will be available to stream tomorrow morning on The CW‘s website and app. Next week, The Flash and DC’s Legends of Tomorrow will return to The CW’s lineup. The Flash will feature a guest appearance by Arrow‘s David Ramsey.
